Chapter Twenty-Eight
chapter-seperator
SHE GLIMPSED the green paisley comforter on her twin bed before a tidal wave of flashbacks ambushed her, spinning and churning, cascading over her and leaving her sweat-drenched and gasping for breath. She had blocked the memories for so long, she couldn’t bank them anymore.
“Don’t fight it, Gwynn.” She closed her eyes. “It’s done. Over. Let them wash over you and wash away again. They cannot harm you.”
She opened one eye then the other and took a moment to calm her breathing. Outside, a ray of afternoon sunlight pierced through a slit in the clouds and filtered into her room.
Stuffed animals huddled on a chair in the far corner, wispy cobwebs traveling from toys to wall. A celebrity poster had fallen to the floor. Another poster clung to the wall, its top corner curling away from the dried-up sticky putty. Discarded clothes collected dust atop her bureau, and books had spilled from her wall shelf. Her comforter lay creased and wrinkled as though she hadn’t finished making it. On her windowsill, a tiny glass Santa figurine winked at her, catching the last glimmer of light before the clouds eclipsed the sun again. Cash had given her the figurine for Christmas her freshman year of high school.
Everything looked the same in here—and yet everything had changed beyond these walls.
Gwynn turned to her secretary desk, a simpler version of Gramps’ desk at the workshop sporting a drop front rather than a scroll top. He’d built it himself and given it to her on her thirteenth birthday. She extended the two support rails, lowered the front, and shone the flashlight inside.
Six cubbyholes filled with cards, notepads, and a collection of bookmarks marched across the interior back wall, three on each side of a center square compartment that boasted a little door. Much like Gramps’s desk. But unlike his desk—Gwynn set down the flashlight and reached for the pair of two-inch-wide vertical columns flanking the square door—he’d made hers with a secret.
“I got it!” Alex exclaimed as he tromped through the front door. He held up a canvas sack the size of a shoebox. “That shifty Will Cooper thought he could keep this from me. Finding it on my land—which means it’s mine by right.” He settled onto a chair at the dining table. “I oughtta skin his worthless hide.”
“You gave him permission to dig for artifacts while doing them post holes.” Mother poured him a glass of his favorite whiskey.
“’Cause I didn’t think he’d find anything! This changes everything .”
It makes you a liar, Hadley thought.
Mother placed the whiskey on the table before Alex. “How much you think is there?”
“Don’t know. It’s gold nuggets and rolls of old bills—turn of the century, I reckon. Regardless of their face value, their age alone has gotta be worth tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of dollars.”
“Let’s count ’em.” Mother stretched a hand toward the bag.
Alex jerked it close to his body. “All in good time, woman. I ain’t gonna jinx myself doin ’ it in front of the likes of you. A fella in Helena says he’ll give me fair trade for the gold.” Her father patted the canvas bag, looking at it with more reverence than he ever looked at his family. “Just think how much wealth I’m holding right now.”
“What about Will Cooper? Won’t he come after you?”
“I fired him. Can’t have a money grubber for an employee, can I? Said I’d fire at him if he put so much as the tip of his nose over my property line.”
“I like Mr. Cooper,” Hadley blurted. “What are he and his family supposed to do without—”
“‘I like Mr. Cooper,’” Alex mocked in a high-pitched voice. His lip curled. “You like his holier-than-thou offspring, that’s what you like.” He tossed back his whiskey in one swallow, eyes narrowing. “You best remember where your loyalties lie, girlie , or I’ll turn that hot-blooded stud into a gelding.”
Gwynn shuddered, her gaze snapping back to the present day, her fingers tightening on the vertical columns. “Thank you, God, for rescuing me from that man.”
Now to undo the evil her father had wreaked.
She pushed the columns inward until a hidden mechanism clicked . They sprang forward, and she pulled them out, the columns mere facades to two narrow but deep drawers at their backs. Over the years, she’d hidden keepsakes or Christmas money she’d received from the Forresters, or …
Titling the drawers toward her, she released a laugh.
Or rolled up wads of stolen greenbacks and an old tobacco tin filled with gold nuggets.
She had crammed the drawers with the bills, wider than today’s paper money and bound with twine, and they sat there still, untouched. Thank you, Lord!
Gwynn made quick work transferring the treasure to her backpack purse and returned the columns to their places beside the center compartment. Best to wait and examine the money in the safety of the Davisons’ house. Would the value be enough to give Ainsley a chance at college or allow Cash to buy out Gramps?
Tires crunched on the gravel driveway.
She froze, the hair rising at her nape.
Shoot—had the squatter returned, or had Uncle Russ decided to join her? Slinging the backpack onto one shoulder, she hurried from the bedroom and tiptoed down the stairs. If she timed it right, she could escape through the mudroom before—
The front door banged open. “Show yourself!” a raspy, male voice called out. “I know someone’s in here.”
Her heart nosedived into her stomach, and Gwynn pressed her back against the stairwell wall, holding her breath.
“I see your car parked outside,” the man continued. Boots clomped around the floor followed by sounds of shifting furniture and objects. “Come out with your hands up. I got a gun, and I ain’t afraid to use it.”
Icy fingertips slithered across her skin. Lord, please help.
But she would’ve had help, had she swallowed her pride and let Uncle Russ come along.
The man’s boots made slow progress into the kitchen area. “Where you at? You skulkin’ on the stairs?” A shot sounded, and the doorjamb splintered at the base of the stairs.
Gwynn yelped then cringed. Cover blown, she called, “Please don’t shoot.”
“Git out here.”
Pulse racing, she raised her hands and stepped from the stair-well into the kitchen. Her eyes widened at the man in patched overalls, his pistol gripped in one hand and trained on her, a can of beer in the other. “Charlie Parker?”
“How do you know my—” He squinted at her, and his pistol trembled. The scar on his upper lip turned white. “It is you. Yer Hadley Jacobs, ain’tcha?”
She stared at the firearm and gulped. “Y-yes.”
“You come back from the grave?” With an unsteady hand, he plunked the beer can on the edge of the kitchen counter. The can tipped and clattered to the floor. Dark liquid pooled around it. “You come to haunt me?”
Gwynn’s pulse hammered an erratic pace. If he shot her, would her blood pool like the beer? “I’m not a ghost. I—”
“What’re you doin’ here?”
“It’s my house. What are you doing here?”
The pistol shook harder, and Charlie clenched it in both hands. “I ain’t no thief. I ain’t goin’ ta jail.” His voice took on a desperate tone. “Alex said I was welcome to stay whenever. Gave me a key. And you ain’t never come back—then you was buried. So, what’re you here for now? You gonna kick me out? Toss me in the snow with all the other trash?” His nostrils flared, and he altered his hold on the pistol. “Hoity toities like you ain’t got use fer trash.”
She shifted on the linoleum floor, and the firearm followed. “Please, sir—”
“Don’t you ‘sir’ me. And quit movin’. Think you can sweet-talk yer way outta this. You come and disturb a man’s plans then act like it’s my fault.”
The man was talking in riddles. What do I do, Lord?
“Alex said he had a job fer me. Would tell me about it when I showed up. ’Cept I didn’t make it. Got waylaid. So, I didn’t kill ’em, see?” He swiped one palm on his pant leg, leaving a sweat smear. “I told them officers I had nuthin’ to do with the murders, so you can— No. No, wait.” His gaze darted about the kitchen, the pistol quivering in his hand. “Yeah, you just wait a cotton-pickin’ minute. Yer here fer the hidden treasure.” He looked back to her, his eyes narrowing. “I’m right, ain’t I? Where is it? In the house?” He zeroed in on her backpack purse. “You got it in there?”
“I don’t—”
“No more lies!” he screamed, his face contorting, flecks of spit gathering at the corners of his mouth. His fingers convulsed on the pistol as he retrained it on her, and Gwynn’s throat closed. “You tell me where it is or—”
The pistol went off, the crack reverberating against the walls. Gwynn’s knees buckled. Charlie swore and dropped the firearm, eyes flaring, head shaking.
“I didn’t mean to! I didn’t mean to!” he shrieked and fled the house.
Gwynn slumped forward as the scene from that night swallowed her.